Friday 31 July 2020

Review: Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson

It is the year 2054. A few decades previously, humans got collectively locked out of the internet and chaos. A few decades later and society was reimagined, with bots (a combination of human DNA and software engineering) living among humans. The main bot of this story is a dentist called Jared who is living a pleasant life until one day when a strange number appears. He realises it is the number of teeth he will see for the remainder of his bot life. He consults his human doctor friend who, after some questions, diagnoses him with depression. Jared thinks this can’t be true because he is a bot and can’t feel things.

Eventually he discovers that his friend was right and sets out to make a difference in his life. The only problem is that if he does that, he will be tracked by the Bureau of Robotics and his memory will be wiped.

He flees across America to Los Angeles where he sets out to write a movie. He also meets a woman who he falls in love with before realising that time is running out for him.

This novel is charming and quirky with a huge depth of feeling that builds as we discover with Jared what it means to be human. As Jared is a bot, he presents to us the inconsistencies and illogical instances that happen as a result of being human, which don’t always mean negative results but can nevertheless be nonsensical.

Set My Heart To Five is published soon and set to be a major motion picture.

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